ADO.NET Provider for Salesforce with Entity Framework and SSIS Support

dotConnect for Salesforce is an ADO.NET provider for accessing data of the Salesforce.com cloud CRM and Database.com cloud database through the standard ADO.NET or Entity Framework interfaces. It allows you to easily integrate Salesforce data into your .NET applications, and integrate Salesforce services with widely used data-oriented technologies. dotConnect for Salesforce offers local SQL engine to query Salesforce data, advanced data caching, query optimization and other enterprise level features.

Salesforce integration interfaces of dotConnect for Salesforce

dotConnect for Salesforce eliminates the need to learn complex Web Services API - it allows you to use your knowledge of ADO.NET and Entity Framework.

dotConnect for Salesforce offers the easiest way for integration of Salesforce services into .NET applications and the highest performance. It uses advanced data caching, connection pooling, and query optimization to increase the performance of connecting to Salesforce CRM and fetching data.

Its local SQL engine allows you to use SQL-92 compatible SELECT statements to work with Salesforce Leads, Contacts, Opportunities, Accounts and other objects in the same way as with SQL tables. You may use complex JOINs, WHERE conditions, etc. - all the SQL benefits, not available with Salesforce SOQL.

dotConnect for Salesforce Benefits

Use your knowledge of SQL-92, ADO.NET, and Entity Framework with Salesforce data!
Integrate Salesforce data with Microsoft data access technologies!
Use our enterprise level features, such as data caching for offline work, connection pooling, and connection failover!

ADO.NET

ADO.NET is a widely-used and well known way to access data that can easily be integrated with a number of data processing technologies, thus allowing you to easily create data-oriented applications.

Our ADO.NET provider offers you:

Powerful local SQL engine with support for SQL-92 compliant SELECT statement
Visual Studio integration - data binding, Server Explorer, Query Builder, Data Source Configuration Wizard, etc.
Easy access to metadata with either GetSchema method or through SQL-92 compatible information schema

Entity Framework

Entity Framework offers a number of advantages over using Salesforce developer API directly:

LINQ to Entities (no need for Salesforce SOQL)
Entity relations with lazy/eager loading
No need to post each edited/created object separately - a single SaveChanges() call to persist all the changed objects

dotConnect for Salesforce provides enhanced Entity Framework support for Salesforce data with a bundled visual designer for ORM models with Visual Studio integration - Entity Developer. Standard Visual Studio Entity Data Model designer is also supported.

SSIS Data Flow Components

dotConnect for Salesforce provides advanced Data Flow components: Devart Salesforce Source and Devart Salesforce Destination along with Salesforce Connection Manager for creating Salesforce data integration solutions for data export and import. These components come with powerful visual editors and offer advanced features:

Support for SQL and SOQL for querying data
Visual selecting of Salesforce objects instead of typing their names
Native bulk protocol for loading data
Advanced error processing
Inserting related objects without modifying the database

Why Not Web Services API?

Salesforce integration through the free Web Services API has considerable disadvantages. Before starting you need to learn complex Web Services API, Salesforce data types, to get acquainted with Salesforce object model. You also need to learn how to choose protocol, how to establish a connection, and how to retrieve data using query and querymore calls.

To retrieve data, you have to use SOQL, which is known to be rather limited. Additionally, the data are returned in an object form that is hard to use in controls, reports, etc.

Creating a new object is a complex task with the Web Services API, and this webservice does not allow deleting or updating several objects with a single call - you have to use cycles for these tasks. All this requires much time and efforts to learn.

With our provider there is no need to learn all of this. You can use your existing ADO.NET or Entity Framework knowledge to accomplish all the tasks involving Salesforce data without using their Web Services API.